“To be as informed as possible, it would have been nice to have been selected,” Pinkoson said. “But nothing precludes us from attending the meetings. We may not have been picked, but we can still participate.”

The historic lows of rivers, lakes and springs in the two districts and public concerns that groundwater pumping in Northeast Florida was affecting water bodies and groundwater levels in the more rural Suwannee district led the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the two water management districts to formalize an agreement in September to work more closely on water issues.

Under their North Florida Regional Water Supply Partnership, the districts will work cooperatively in planning and permitting decisions, use shared science and processes in setting minimum flows and levels — or mfls — for water bodies and coordinate efforts on restoring water bodies that do not meet those mfls.

The stakeholder committee was established to provide input — from elected officials, utilities, environmental groups and industrial uses — on the partnership’s future direction and the region’s water supply planning.

The Suwannee district considered 24 applicants and the St. Johns district 18. Each district could appoint six members.

Knight and Pinkoson applied to both districts. GRU’s Cunningham applied to the Suwannee district. While the utility’s water withdrawal permit is issued by St. Johns — and the vast majority of its customers are in that district — the rationale was that the Suwannee district had far fewer utilities in it, said David Richardson, the GRU assistant general manager for Water and Wastewater Systems.

“We thought we would have been a good candidate because we have customers in both districts, and we have a long history of water supply planning,” Richardson said. “Regardless of whether we’re a recognized stakeholder, we’re going to participate in this group and in water supply planning.”

The Suwannee district’s governing board appointed its committee members based on recommendations from staff.

“I think we just tried to spread things around the district and certainly didn’t try to slight Alachua County,” said Charlie Houder, the assistant executive director of the Suwannee district. “That’s just the way things turned out.”

Houder said they had a large pool of well-qualified applicants and had several difficult choices to make.

“The selection process did not heavily consider the geographic location of the candidates but rather their level of expertise/knowledge in water supply issues, their involvement in the water supply planning process, and support from the stakeholders they will represent in their category,” Al Canepa, the St. Johns district’s assistant director for Water Resources, wrote in an email.

Canepa noted that there was heavy interest — six applicants including Knight — for the district’s lone committee slot for an environmental group representative.

Meeting dates for the stakeholder committee are not yet set.

The committee members and the categories they represent are:

Public water supply: Ray O. Avery, Clay County Utility Authority; David Clanton, City of Lake City Utilities.